Brucester: Thanks much---always loved that version of "Early Morning Rain" by the Trio done on the Andy Williams Show.....Joe P

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Thanks a lot, Joe.

KINGSTON TRIO fans + GORDON LIGHTFOOT fans from Philly....

=> are pretty awesome too !!!

>>> GO FLYERS Brucester

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Canadian Railroad Trilogy-----AWESOME!!! (as usual)...Joe P

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Thanks a million, Jim !!!

Just wanted to add one more thing.

No matter how talented or how wonderful a Canadian artist might be, unless he (or she) is acknowledged and recognized by Americans... they often go un-noticed. Simply put, they don't make it.

IAN & SYLVIA who discovered GORDON LIGHTFOOT were also very well received by the Folk Music "in-crowd" at Greenwich Village. Again, the Americans welcomed Canada's dynamic duo with open arms !!!

So thanks again for loving GORDON LIGHTFOOT and to the great country of The United States of America for knowing and admiring great talent when they see it...and when they hear it !!!

Excellent post as always, Jim Moran.

=> THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH !!!

Brucester

Gordon Lightfoot in 1969 (live) singing: "Early Morning Rain"

AND...AND...AND...

Gordon Lightfoot in 2000 (live) singing: "Canadian Railroad Triology"

=> FOLK U.S.A. RULES !!!

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The mentions of GL in the threads below reminded me of our subject line fact. Gord celebrated his 80th yesterday Nov. 17th with a concert in his home town of Orillia, Ontario - the town in which he was born and has always lived. He has been part of the landscape of folk-type music for more than fifty years, and it could fairly be said that his somewhat surprising mega-success in the early 1970s (which included 4 #1 singles, a #1 album, and a half dozen more LPs in the top 15, all of these on Billboard 's main U.S. charts) was just what acoustic music needed to keep breathing in the era of folk-rock morphing into disco.

I'm with those below who rate Lightfoot as the best of the folk singer-songwriters, in the same league with Tom Paxton and John Denver (always acknowledging Bob Dylan, though after his first couple of albums I think he left what many of us think as folk behind him and invented something new, something unique).

In any event, I wrote two pieces on GL on CV101. The first here is a general retrospective on his 75th birthday and features a half dozen or so videos, many of them from his splendid 1972 BBC concert that was shot a bit before the apex of his fame but that features IMO his best era of performance with his greatest accompanists, Red Shea on guitar and Rick Haynes on bass on bass.

Lightfoot 75th Birthday Retrospective

The second here is a more typical CV101 piece on one of my favorite Lightfoot songs, "Bitter Green," one of his best lost love songs and in its structure and tenor an authentic-sounding ballad that, like much of his best early work, sounds as if it were traditional when it clearly is not. This article is more thoughtful than the first above and says a lot about what I think is the essential nature of his songwriting genius.

Both are my way of saying thanks to the universe for its gift of Gordon Lightfoot to us all.